Today we’d like to introduce you to Don Trunk
Hi Don, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My name is Donovan, most people call me Don for short and I started making music around 12 inside my grandma’s basement. I didn’t have much studio gear back then but somehow i recorded the whole neighborhood on a radio shack mic and a multitrack recorder i found at the local flea market. All the local rappers and hustlers around the way grew to like my style cause I would come outside with beat CDs that i pressed up and promote at the corner store that i had a studio in my basement. I became obsessed with going to Guitar Center after school and got in trouble for trying to pawn my video games for studio gear. I start saving money for gear from middle school to high school and finally in the 9th grade, I got a MPC2000xl for $1200, a new hard drive for a computer my aunt gave me and enough money to go to a real studio for the first time. I invited a bunch of local artist to meet me at the studio that day just to play my beats and the studio owner offered me an internship off of my customer service and respect for his studio location. I started working there bringing in all the local artist and learning how to make money day to day off music. Some of those artist ended up on the radio and i ended up to going to interviews and cyphers with them until I got me an internship at the radio station. I started working there months later and now I’m at the radio station, the studio and i got enough money for a car and more studio equipment. I thought i was the man when i got a whip, it was a 97 Crown Vic and i put 20” rims on it (back then that was the thing) and 12 inch subs in the Trunk. I would ride around all day selling CDs i made with local artist and promote my beat CDs so much that one day a girl made a joke about me saying “Don over here running a business out his Trunk” and that stuck with me forever. I would now go by Don Trunk after that day and that would fuel my hustle to sell merchandise everywhere i pulled up and make a name for myself. I would continue working at the radio station stacking my clients up, meeting new artist, promoters, DJs and like minded individuals and become a trusted local producer. I would do sessions every night at any location i was invited to until i realize it was me they wanted to work with and I needed to build my own studio. I started getting so much content on local radio, commercials and on mixtapes that i ended up getting a production deal and I took that money to build my own home studio and the rest was history from that day on. I would later build the first location to Dream 1st Studios in 2013 in Baltimore, MD. From there I would start recording everyone in the city as well as major label artist who grew to like my work ethic and love for music. I would build a strong relationship with Dru Hill and become their audio engineer and videographer from 2015-2022. That relationship with them keep me working in Atlanta and gave me opportunities to collab with Executive Producer Troy Taylor, who is the goat of R&B and a living legend in Atlanta when it comes to R&B! He showed me how to navigate in the music industry as a producer and how to collab with writers and producers to get the job done. I would get my first break to work with Troy on “Dru Hill – Christmas in Baltimore” album and i got to record every song on the project with Dru Hill and Troy Taylor at every session so I really got to be apart of the whole process. I grew up in Baltimore, so making it to Atlanta with Dru Hill was a big moment for me. Working in the R&B scene of Atlanta really gave me a rich history lesson of how much ATL has contributed to the music business and the sound of R&B today. I love those sessions over Troy’s house meeting so many talented songwriters and producers who really worked hard and deserved to be there. I would take that energy back to Baltimore, make as much music as i can and start my first writing camp at my studio location. I wanted to give Baltimore access to what I discovered was very successful in Atlanta but I had to find a way to give that energy back to my hometown and create some type of hope cause Baltimore has a very negative mindset and most people from my hometown do not know how to work together and i always wanted to change that mentality one day. I would talk to Troy and Nokio from Dru Hill about how to make it happen and they would make it clear to me that I’m wasting my time and I need to focus on myself but I was determined to give my city a name in the music business. I would later find that writing camp with my own money, paying for everyone to have a space to create and force them to get out of their comfort zone to work together. It was very hard and expensive for me to make everyone collab and get music done but that camp introduced so many artist and writers that would have never worked together and collaborate until I opened the door for them to have that once in a lifetime opportunity. I feel responsible for the relationships that were created in my writing camp and I’m happy to see my efforts not go to waste, some would be bitter and feel they are due credit but me personally I just wanted to see my city do something other than The Wire. A bunch of artist from my writing camp have linked up with those producers I linked them up with and now they have songs on the radio and are charting on TikTok and Spotify so I’m happy I gave them a place to create. I say all this to say, as a producer you won’t always get credit or mentioned for your hard work but you will inspire others to get started and do something with their talents they never knew they could if you show them the way. Anything is possible if you get your hustle on and don’t stop. You ain’t got to hustle out the trunk of your car like I did, you could start on social media and just promote yourself to the world, it’s a bigger audience, it’s the same process if you look at it that way and in due time people will respect your hustle and start to support you.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Getting in the music industry was very hard. I recall a time I met Sisqo from Dru Hill at Food Lion, a local market back in 2005 and i had a beat CD ready to play for him soon as he got out the store. He say hello like a famous artist would, hopped in his Hummer like a music video & drove off in front of me throwing the CD i just gave him out the window a few feet later like it was a movie scene or something lol i laugh that moment now cause years later today, I can send him songs i produced and he will go straight to the booth to record them the same day. Sometimes you not ready for the blessings you truly deserve, you gotta earn them so don’t expect anything to magically happen for you just cause you meet somebody for the first time. It took me years to build a relationship with Dru Hill and if it wasn’t for Nokio, my brother L and my Brother Jay Funk seeing a spark in me back then, i would have never got a chance to work with Dru Hill and my beat cd would still be crushed on the side of the road.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am a music producer and audio engineer. I love recorded a lot of local artist in Baltimore, got my big break with Dru Hill & King Los and I’ve done tons of sessions with Artist and labels in Atlanta.
I’m most proud of building my studio, Dream 1st Studios as well as working with so many great artist and producers like Dru Hill, King Los, Jess Hilarious, Jim Jones, Ace Hood, Young Guru, Ski Beatz, Rod Lee, Blaqstarr, Mighty Mark, TT the Artist, Mims, Gucci Mane, Troy Taylor, Dennard Watson, etc
What sets me apart is that I want to get the music done by any means necessary, i want the visual to be perfect on any budget, i want the music to feel original even if it’s 100 samples in it, i want the story to be told even if it’s negative, i will find a positive impact no matter what.
What are your plans for the future?
I just shut down my biggest studio location and I’m so excited to get rid of that expensive bill. I’m a dad now, i have a 3 year old baby boy and I wouldn’t miss a moment to be in his life for nothing in this world. He is my heart and he motivates me so much to do what i do best and i want to leave a legacy behind for him. I been running studios for over 12 years now and i will say I’m excited to shut down and get back to focusing on my own music, production and catalog. For years i been going nonstop building studio rooms and doing 600-900 studio sessions a year with whoever walks thru the door so i haven’t had enough time to focus on my own music, be a dad and fully work with the artist that I truly like to listen to and want to collab with. I shut down the studio in March 2025 after 12 years of operation so I could focus and put my own Dream 1st. Now I’ve build my 4th home studio and I’m back to working on projects that I really want to do and pretty soon I’ve be able to share the good news i have in the making, I just wanted to focus on doing the work required right now until my blessing gets fully finalized.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://linktr.ee/dontrunk
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dontrunk
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dontrunk
Image Credits
Photos taken by Dream 1st Studios, Dru Hill LLC & TTU
